According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, the developer of the popular mobile game Pok & eacute; mon go is raising a new round of financing, with an estimated company value of $3.9 billion.
The $200 million round will be led by IVP, a venture capital firm, with strategic investors Samsung Electronics and axiomatic gaming, an E-sports company.
Last year, the San Francisco based company raised $200 million at a valuation of $2.7 billion. Existing shareholders include spark capital, founders fund and meritech Capital Partners.
Nicantic launched Pokemon go in 2016. Based on the characters in the Japanese comic book of the same name, the mobile game made its name overnight by using augmented reality technology and quickly attracted many users. Ninatic games will share the revenue with Pokemon go. Its revenue comes from in-game purchase, which helps players to achieve faster success in the game.
According to data provided by app Annie, "Pokemon go" once topped Apple's App Store rankings, and then the growth rate of game downloads began to slow down, but it is still the top 200 apps with the most downloads in the United States.
Investors believe that users of the core Pokemon go are still active, and that the upcoming Harry Potter themed game from ninatic next year is likely to be popular.
Niantic is also expected to represent other franchisees in developing other games using revenue sharing models.
Despite the risks of blockbuster driven businesses, VCs have invested heavily in game companies in recent months. Fortite's creator Epic Games is valued at nearly $15 billion in a round of financing, while roblox Corp., the video game center, is valued at more than $2.5 billion.
The company was originally named nialtic labs and was founded in 2010 within Google. After that, the team separated in 2015 and became an independent game company.